The Rendezvous Ballroom was a large dance hall built in 1928, located on the beach of

Balboa Peninsula The Balboa Peninsula (also referred to as "Balboa" or "the Peninsula") is a neighborhood of the city of Newport Beach, Orange County, California. It is named after Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific ...

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, Southern California, between

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and

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. The 1920s were the beginning of the heyday of public dancing to the music of popular bands and orchestras, and large ballrooms were built in most urban areas, and even on Catalina Island, 26 miles off the California coast. No expense was spared in the construction of the ballroom, which was a city block long, and half a block wide. It featured reinforced concrete walls, a " floating" hard wood floor and a tile roof. After a fire in 1935 the ballroom was rebuilt with an arched roof supported by sectional girders of wood in a cross pattern, the same as used in the nearby blimp hangars for the Marine Corps. The Rendezvous Ballroom caught fire again in 1966, and was never rebuilt. The site now has beachfront condominiums.

Famous performers

Among the notables who played at the Rendezvous was

Stan Kenton Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though K ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

band leader, who originated a TV show from there in 1957-58 and recorded the albums '' Rendezvous with Kenton'' (1957) and ''

Back to Balboa ''Back to Balboa'' is an album by bandleader and pianist Stan Kenton featuring performances recorded at the Rendezvous Ballroom in 1958 and released on the Capitol label.Vosbein, PStan Kenton Discographyaccessed April 16, 2016 The liner notes f ...

'' (1958) at the venue. The ballroom was closed until surf-rock guitarist

Dick Dale Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known a ...

began performing there in 1960. Attendance grew from a few hundred to a capacity crowd of 4,000 on Saturday nights. When Dale left for the

Pasadena Civic Auditorium The Pasadena Convention Center is a convention center in Pasadena, California. It consists of three buildings. Pasadena Civic Auditorium The Civic Auditorium, one of the major structures in the Pasadena Civic Center District, was built in 1931 ...

in 1962, attendance at the Rendezvous continued to grow with bands like The Beach Boys, The Challengers, The Righteous Brothers and others.

References

*http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rendezvous-169619-ballroom-balboa.html *http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/rendezvous-ballroom *http://bos.ocgov.com/legacy3/newsletters/pdf/The_Tustin_Hangars.pdf * *< {{Coord, 33.60161941267734, -117.90061873745951, format=dms, display=title Buildings and structures in Newport Beach, California Music venues in California Buildings and structures completed in 1928 1966 disestablishments in California 1928 establishments in California Buildings and structures demolished in 1966